esoteric meaning of myth

What a pleasant conceit, to suppose that this process produces myth. Whilst undoubtedly true for many legends the process can also work the other way. Many legends for example have produced history. Pre-eminently in this respect, at least for Britain, is ‘King Arthur’ whose story the scholars do indeed now refer to as a mythos.

But what is really going on here?

It is probably more accurate to regard all these forms as stories. We are not supposed to regard History as a story but as ‘recorded fact’ and also ‘true’, but well, really, the clue is in the name. So why do we set such store by stories? The clue is in the question.
The truth of stories lies in a realm other than the literal. And what is ‘the literal’ anyway’?

‘The literal is something that actually happened.’

‘And what do we mean by something?’

‘We mean an ‘act’.’

‘Do we mean an act in a play?’

‘No, we mean a physical act; we mean the physical actions of a person.’

‘What, any act, and any person?’

‘Usually a significant act and a significant person’…

*

*

…A woman set off in the west, coming this way.
She was carrying her baskets for plant foods, her digging stick and a fire-stick.
She was coming, travelling along, camping and then setting off again.
As she went along she was looking about her and where she saw plenty of small creatures and plant food she would stop and eat and then camp.
At sunset she would settle down and sleep and early in the morning she would set off again.
Going on she saw that salt-water tide had come up at a place she hoped to go across.
So she camped there.
She made a sleeping platform in a tree because so many mosquitoes were biting her.
When at last early morning came she made a paper-bark canoe, paddling with her hands to cross to the other side.
Then she started off again and eventually came to a cave house…

*

*

…A Dust-Devil was living in the cave house.
Tall, thin and hairy he was with a crooked body and bat-like wings.
‘My woman has come,’ he said, ‘my body’s no good but today we two will sleep together.’
When they met the woman offered him vegetable food and the Dust-Devil reciprocated with fish.
They slept together but the woman did not like the look of him so she cast about the cave house, found a stone axe and began sharpening it whilst he slept.
The Dust-Devil woke up.
He stretched himself and was preparing to eat the woman. She slashed his neck.
Then she looked around made a fire and cooked his body.
Perhaps he just tossed away the flames that Dust-Devil?
He came out the fire, ‘you woman, why did you kill me? I will cover you with my wings.’
The woman tried to hide but he found her.
He sealed her up in the cave where she was lying.
That cave remained for her then a dark cave.
She kept on talking in there, abusing the Dust-Devil.
At last she became like a rock.
She stands there a rock, forever.

Speak, man! If what you say is true, let us have no ceremony. What is it that you have seen?

Trapper

Why, I have seen a giant, my king!

Gilgamesh

A giant? Pah! You have been listening to tavern stories.

Trapper

No, my lord, with my own eyes I saw him.

Gilgamesh

If your eyes have played you false, then your tongue sets you at risk, Trapper. Tell me of this giant…

Trapper

My eyes serve me well, my lord, and are, as always, at your service.

Gilgamesh

Where and when did you see this apparition?

Trapper

I was hunting in the forest, lord. It is true that there was gossip in the tavern, but I thought as you…that it was no more than a drunken tale.

As the dusk fell near the watering hole, three days ago, I saw him… My lord… forgive me…but I have seen such a savage man at the watering-hole.

He has muscles like rock.

He outruns the wild animals he lives with.

Tall he was… and broad… as an ox.

Rough, unkempt, uncivilised.

His speech, if speech it was, is like to that of the animals with whom he runs.

He fills the pits I have dug and tears out the traps I have set so that the animals again run free.

I can catch nothing.

My livelihood has gone.

I fear no beast, my lord, but seeing this creature, I was afraid…

*

The Silent Eye’s Spring workshop for 2019

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH

The Oldest written story known to man…
What spiritual treasures lie hidden in this, five thousand-year old, Epic?
What can this ancient civilisation teach us about the questions of existence?
Join us on this quest of a life-time, next April, to find out…

*‘Gilgamesh is among the greatest things that can ever happen to a person.’– Rainer Maria Rilke.

Every day is a festival in Uruk where people sing and dance in the streets…

The musicians of Uruk play incessantly on their drums and lyres…

*

And in their bed chambers at night…

The young-folk cry themselves to sleep…”

*

The Silent Eye’s Spring workshop for 2019

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH

The Oldest written story known to man…
What spiritual treasures lie hidden in this, five thousand-year old, Epic?
What can this ancient civilisation teach us about the questions of existence?
Join us on this quest of a life-time, next April, to find out…

*‘Gilgamesh is among the greatest things that can ever happen to a person.’– Rainer Maria Rilke.

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We regularly share the stories of our workshop weekends on these pages. What is impossible to share on these pages is the sense of warmth, the laughter and the camaraderie that attends these weekends. Those who come along are not all members of the Silent Eye… in fact, the majority are not. It is not a requirement. They come for the sake of friendship, companionship and a shared curiosity about the mysteries of this land and the even deeper mysteries our human lives.

Three times a year we gather for informal workshops in the landscape, exploring historic sites and the spiritual history of those who built them. Sometimes we take a more modern landscape and seek a symbolic meaning, finding ways to apply what we learn to or own daily lives. Spirituality is not a noun, but a verb…

In April, we host a different kind of workshop, using a form of ritualistic drama such as was used in the Mystery Schools of old, where a single story is woven through the weekend, touching the imagination through the emotions, and allowing us to illustrate and understand deeper spiritual principles. This too is open to all, and every year people travel across the globe to attend.

Laughter, companionship and understanding are the threads that bind these weekends together. They are designed to explore, not dictate, spiritual principles. We do not teach so much as open a book that we can all learn from together, each as much as they wish.

If you would like to join us for one of our informal Living Land, or Annual April weekends, full details can be found on our Events page. You can also read about past events and what it is like to attend your first workshop with the Silent Eye.

We currently taking bookings for the next two events for 2018, with further informal weekends to be announced for September and December:

The Jewel in the ClawA residential workshop in Great Hucklow, Derbyshire20-22 April, 2018
Intrigue at the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England. William Shakespeare holds a conversation with Death. “There was one story untold,” says the Bard. “One story that could not be told or it would have hurt her soul and her life… a story of the beloved Queen’s darkest hour.” Death leans in and listens. “Tell it now,” he whispers…

The Giant and the SunAn informal weekend, based in Cerne Abbas, Dorset15-17 June 2018
Tradition tells of a mischievous Giant who after devouring several sheep lay down on the side of a hill to sleep off his breakfast. The people of Blackmoor Vale tied him down and killed him. The tiny village of Cerne Abbas is today still overlooked by the Giant’s effigy cut in chalk on the side of the hill. But what other secrets does the landscape within and around the village hold.

I have the dubious honour of having the largest vehicle. Tomorrow, I will spend five hours or so loading the major fixtures needed to create the Temple of the Mysteries that we use to stage our magical dramas. On Friday morning, very early, I will collect the single passenger needed to fill up the one seat not taken up by the fittings, and we will journey to the lovely village of Great Hucklow, and the wonderful Nightingale Centre, home of the last three of the Silent Eye’s annual workshops.

This year’s Leaf and Flame event tells the Arthurian story of Sir Gawain and his doomed quest to protect King Arthur from the consequences of accepting the Green Knight’s beheading challenge. Essentially, the Green Knight, riding into Camelot on New Year’s Day, challenges any of the Knights present to chop off his head; as long as he may do the same a year from then. Sensing extreme trickery, Gawain persuades King Arthur that he should not accept the challenge, but let it fall to himself (Gawain) instead.

We may assume that Gawain was suspicious of the actions of the green giant, but did not want to expose his beloved King to the dark forces involved. Sure enough, having chopped the head from the otherwise peaceful invader, Gawain awakens to a scenario of horror as the Green Knight picks up his severed head and rides out, stating that he’ll see his failed executioner in a year’s time, at a place called the Green Chapel, for the return blow – a blow that Gawain knows he does not have the magic to survive.

And so the scene is set for a mysterious series of adventures, culminating in a frozen and nearly dead Sir Gawain, in honourable search for the Green Chapel to surrender his life, arriving at an unknown castle and being taken in by the Lord and Lady who run it. They thus save his life and assure him that he has time, before paying his grisly debt, to recover amidst their generous hospitality, as the mysterious Green Chapel is nearby.

In return for this rescue, the Lord proposes a game: that, on each of three days’ hunting that follow, he will give to Gawain everything he wins. In return Gawain is to give to him everything that he receives, during his recovery in the warmth of the castle. So far so good, but when the Lord has left to hunt, the following morning, the Lady of the castle steals into Gawain’s bedchamber and attempts to seduce him… There follows a verbal fencing match where Gawain, decidedly under-dressed under his bed covers, is kept prisoner by the Lady while she works her seductive mischief. The original 14th century text is cleverly composed to show how the Lady changes strategies several times to try to outwit Gawain, who clings to his Knightly principles in what he senses is a losing game…

For three days, this twin metaphor of hunting and seduction is played out, with Gawain finally succumbing either to a magical token (the Lady’s garter) that may just help him survive his immanent beheading at the hands of the nearby Green Knight; or to sex with the lovely seductress. The interpretation relies very much on your point of view of the mores of the medieval times. Sex and Death were common themes, particularly in those tales that derive, as does the story of Gawain, from older Celtic traditions, where plain-speaking was the norm.

A similar historical eye is needed for the details of the Lord’s grisly hunting scenes, which otherwise might seem unnecessarily bloodthirsty…The original story was written about a time not long after the Norman invasion, where a strict code of hunting rewards were part of the hierarchy of the controlling elite.

I will not finish the formal story, as Leaf and Flame is not exactly sticking to the original plot, instead, as I wrote to a friend, earlier:

“In the hands of Stuart and Sue, The Leaf and Flame story of Sir Gawain becomes a sophisticated tale of the different ‘selves’ of the human; from the ‘lower’ and animalistic levels (and, below that, the foundation of survival, itself) to the assumed higher and intellectual levels. In the ‘middle’ we have the powerhouse that is the emotional ‘self’. The three ‘levels’ are not necessarily to be seen as stacked vertically…nor in the order given above..

The five act mystical drama follows the initial beheading of The Green Knight (who does not die, but rides off with his head under his arm) to the subsequent trials of Sir Gawain, who volunteered to enter this cursed action to save the honour of King Arthur. In the 14th century original, Gawain is ‘nicked’ on the neck rather than beheaded, following a partly successful seduction by the wife of a noble related to the Green Knight. Along the way, Leaf and Flame weaves in the story of Lady Ragnell, a woman cursed to be ugly to her suitors until one breaks the spell, thus freeing her to be what she is…

The greater story is that of the impossibility of divorcing the different elements of the ‘Whole Human’ whose nature has to be realised, in the words of Sue and Stuart, as “Fully human and fully divine”. The workshop is a cryptic journey through all these levels and how they operate within the life of, in this case, one victim, played by at least two people – Sir Gawain and his alter egos. Of his survival or not, I cannot speak, since my parters are keeping me in ignorance! I can only say that I sense some horror ahead; and that they are not necessarily keeping to the original story!”

I am, as you may have guessed, playing the part of Sir Gawain… it was not my idea, but my active acceptance of the doom ahead (whatever that turns out to be–and I really do not know the important details) needs to be a fitting tribute to their wonderful efforts. Whatever my ‘loathly end’ turns out to be, it will be followed by one of the most spectacular outside fire-dances, in the form of a performance by the mysterious Langsett Fox Dancers, whose dramatic performance will light up the night, though I probably won’t be there to see it, so to speak…

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I have an appointment with a grisly end and this may well be my last post…

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Shake off the Winter blues – Anticipate the Summer ahead and book now for the Silent Eye’s 2016 pre-Solstice weekend, “Whispers in the West”, to take place in the ancient landscapes of Pembrokeshire, West Wales,June 17-19, 2016.

We will base ourselves in the ancient Celtic city of St David’s, near to the cathedral, whose site dates back to the 6th century. St David’s will be the main focus of the Sunday morning walk and talk. The ancient city offers a good choice of hotels and well-priced guest houses as well as a choice of restaurants.

From the magical traces of the ancient Druids, through the splendour of St David’s Cathedral to the modern and unchanged landscape of Pembrokeshire, the weekend has much to offer.

We will be conducted by a local member of the Silent Eye School who knows the landscape and its history well.

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…Taking his cloak, his horn, and his clarsach, Gwythyr went to
Red Bull, “I have come to ask whether or
not you know the whereabouts of Big Chief Hawthorn, and
his daughter Creiddylad whom I am destined to sleep with?”

Said Red Bull, “When first I came here
there was a plain with no trees save for a solitary sapling,
and the sapling grew to be an oak of one hundred branches,
but now all that remains of the oak is a withered stump, and
from that day to this though I have heard tell of such a man,
I have never yet come across him of whom you inquire.”

Said Gwythyr-the-Bright, “O Mighty
Bellower of the Open Field will
you tell me what you know?”

“Indeed I will young Gwythyr but what I have heard
will not be easy on your ears, for it is said, that with
him, none can keep pace on horse-back or on foot;
and so lightly does he tread that the grass
neither breaks nor bends beneath his feet;

and that if his way lies through a wood
he goes along the tops of the trees;

and he is as good a guide in the land never seen
as in his own, and that, young Gwythyr, is all I can tell you
but White Raven may know more of him than I do.”

So Gwythyr took his cloak, his horn, and his clarsach, and he
went to White Raven, “I have come to ask
whether or not you know the whereabouts of Big Chief Hawthorn,
and his daughter Creiddylad whom I am destined to sleep with?”

Said White Raven, “When first I came here that wide
valley below was a wooded glen which when the race of men came they
rooted up, and there grew a second wood but that too the race of men
up-rooted, so that the wood you see before you is the third that has
grown here, yet in all that time though I have heard tell of such a man
I have never yet come across him of whom you inquire.”

Said Gwythyr-the-Bright, “O Great
Gorger on the Field of Battle will
you tell me what you know?”

“Indeed I will young Gwythyr but what I have heard
will not be easy on your ears, for it is said that from
him none can wrest a smile until he is satisfied:

and that when sad his bottom lip
drops below his waist like a belt,
and when angry his top lip rises
above his head like a cap;

and that when at home he feasts
until noon, drinks until night,
and then devours the heads of vermin,
and that, young Gwythyr, is all I can tell you, although Yellow Owl may know more of him than I do.”…

…“In which the Ladies of the Round rediscover the Tale of Blessed Bran, Merlin and the Lady re-convene the Assembly of the Wondrous Head, King Arthur and his Knights go hunting and Gawain enters the Enchanted Forest in pursuit of the hart and stumbles upon another ‘Death-Pact’ the solution to which lies in the discovery of the correct answer to an elusive riddle.”…

The eyes have been dotted, the tees have been crossed, to all intents and purposes the ‘donkey work’ of writing the five dramas for next year’s April Workshop: Leaf and Flame- The Foliate Man has been done. There will undoubtedly be minor changes between now and then, there always are and these are usually flagged up in the communal read throughs which will take place at our three remaining monthly meetings.

There is still an awful lot of work to be done in terms of music, props, costuming and the presentations which are used throughout to properly set the tone and theme for the weekend…

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